"Quite sure," said Luther. "He's been keeping his head down so far, with about thirty of his people. I've got some of my people watching them. The Doctor can't make a move without us knowing. Why did the Matriarch send you in particular, Eddie? When has it ever taken more than one Drood to handle Doctor Delirium?"
"I have a history with the Doctor," I said. "I ran an operation in London, some time back, to deny him funding for some new scheme of his, but he got away. Reluctantly, I am forced to admit that I don't have nearly the financial acumen of the late departed Matthew Drood. He really knew the City. But, unfortunately, he turned out to be a part of the Zero Tolerance insurrection and a traitor to the family."
"So you killed him," said Luther.
"No," I said. "Though he'd probably have been better off if I had. Anyway, we still haven't found anyone to replace him, so I'm handling London all on my own. And without Matthew's insider knowledge, I betrayed my hand a little too early and it all went to rat shit in a hurry. Doctor Delirium set his mercenaries on me, and while I was kicking them around he made a swift exit. He always did believe in letting others do his fighting for him. We still don't know exactly what he was up to in London, or what precisely he needed so much new money for… He's never been short of cash in the past. Anyway, I was really… quite upset, when he got away from me, so when we learned he'd turned up here, I persuaded the Matriarch to let me come and assist you in taking the Doctor down."
"Ah," said Luther. "So this is nothing to do with me, and all to do with you. You're only here because the Matriarch favours you. Because she's your grandmother."
I had to smile. "Shows how little you know her."
I didn't take Doctor Delirium seriously. Nobody did. He had a secret base and a private army only because an uncle left them to him in his will. Ever since, the man who used to be a decent small-time research chemist has been hamming it up big-time as a mad science villain, Doctor Delirium, and building up his army with small ads in the back of Soldier of Fortune magazine. He's based somewhere in the Amazon rain forest, after being hounded out of every civilised country, and the Nightside, and spends all his time now plotting grand schemes and revenges against all of civilisation. A little man with lots of money and resources, and serious delusions of grandeur. Always a bad combination.
He might have become a real problem, if he hadn't been such a prat.
His usual modus operandi was to work up some awful new disease in his secret laboratories, and then threaten to unleash them on the world, if all the various governments didn't agree to pay him off, in rare postage stamps. I suppose once a collector, always a collector. But the Doctor was such a sloppy operator we always managed to find some weak spot in his organisation, and then we'd just squeeze the knowledge we needed out of some poor sod at the bottom of the food chain, get our hands on a specimen of his new disease before he'd even finished testing it… and by the time he got around to issuing his threats, we already? had a cure or a vaccine. End of problem. On a few occasions, we have found it necessary to bomb his secret labs, but he always escapes and sets up somewhere else. The Amazon rain forest is a really big place.
"Who's the field agent in his area, these days?" said Luther.
"Conrad Drood," I said. "Good man, old African hand, very experienced. But he has a lot of ground to cover, and limited resources. And, he has to be very careful every time he ventures into the rain forest area; Timothy Drood's still in there somewhere."
"Tiger Tim?" said Luther. "That crazy bastard? He's still alive? Why hasn't someone killed him yet?"
"Because he's still a Drood, for all his many faults. And we are notoriously hard to kill. Talk to me about Doctor Delirium. How long has he been here? What do you know, about why he's here?"
"Not much," Luther admitted. "He's only been in town a few days, holed up in a motel with his mercenaries. Word is, he's here to attend a very private auction, being held on the top floor of this very hotel, tonight. Before it officially opens. It's hard to get any real information; my people are using every listening device and surveillance spell at their command, but the Doctor's defences are first class. But, it seems he's come all the way here, so far from his heavily protected comfort zone, because he's desperate to acquire one of the items at this auction. Doctor Delirium wants the Apocalypse Door."
"I read that name in your last report," I said. "There's no record of such a thing in the Hall Library, or the Old Library. Which would normally suggest it can't be anything that dangerous, or significant, because if it was we'd have heard about it."
"Possibly," said Luther. "But any use of the word Apocalypse has to be just a bit worrying."
"Either way, the Matriarch has decided that Doctor Delirium is not to be allowed to get his hands on this Apocalypse Door, whatever it might turn out to be. We are to put a stop to his efforts, give him and his people a good? kicking, and then send him home with a flea in his ear. If only for being such a bloody nuisance."
"Why don't we just kill him?" said Luther.
"You've been in LA too long," I said sternly. "Watching too many cop shows. We're supposed to be agents, not assassins. Otherwise there'd be no difference between us and the forces we fight. It's enough that we protect Humanity; we don't get to bully them. Besides, Doctor Delirium really is a scientific genius, when he can be bothered. We might just need his help some day. Right now he's a menace, but one day he might be an asset. Droods have to take the long view. So, we spank him and send him home crying. Tell me more about this auction."
"On the top floor, strictly private, cut off from the rest of the hotel," said Luther. "One night only, before the hotel officially opens, very definitely By Invitation Only. Lots of armed guards in place, security people everywhere, trespassers will be disappeared. The auction's being run by the Really Old Curiosity Shoppe people; long established firm, very good reputation. Of a kind. They specialise in acquiring rare and unusual items, with or without their owners' permission, and then offering them up at their very private auctions for the delectation of interested (and extremely wealthy) parties. No questions, no provenance, and absolutely no guarantees or refunds. But, they can get you things no one else can, things from the Past, Present and Futures. Sometimes things no one ever really thought existed, and a few that just plain shouldn't."
"I've heard of the company," I said. "Who runs things, these days?"
Luther shrugged. "No one knows, and the company likes it that way. I suppose it's possible someone in our family knows, but if they do it's way above my level." He looked at me thoughtfully. "You used to run the family. And you're still part of the Advisory Council. Are you sure you don't know who these people are?"
It was my turn to shrug. "The family? as a whole knows lots of things, but at any given time we all only know what we need to know."
"Why are you just a field agent again?" Luther said bluntly.
"I prefer to maintain a comfortable distance from the family," I said. "Running it will do that to you."
Luther carefully refolded his map, put it away, produced an oversized colour brochure and handed it to me. "This is an advance copy of the auction catalogue."
I studied it carefully. Very expensive, stiff laminated paper, lots of colour photographs; images so sharp they seemed to jump right off the page. Which was actually quite disturbing in places, given the nature of the images. No suggested prices, or values, though. Probably came under the heading of If you have to ask, you can't afford it. I looked at Luther.